A game of runs, they call it. It would be hard to find a game that better embodies this adage than today’s Kings game against the Clippers. At the end, a clutch Blake Griffin fadeaway with Willie Cauley-Stein draped all over him was the difference between the two teams, with the Kings falling to 5-14 after a 97-95 loss.

The Kings came out of the gates with hot shooting led by Skal Labissiere and Zach Randolph, who scored 7 points each in the first quarter to power the starting group. The Kings bench pushed the lead to 14 points at the end of the half, led by 11 points from Hield and 9 from Cauley-Stein.

The third quarter was when things went off the rails. After a George Hill floater put the Kings up 18 at 65-47, the Clippers unleashed a 26-4 run to take the lead, including 17 straight points. During this stretch, the Clippers flipped a switch on defense, getting into the Kings’ grill and making life uncomfortable with pressure on and off the ball. The Kings did not respond well at all, taking quick shots and committing eight turnovers in the third quarter on their way to getting clubbed 29-10 overall. The Kings have been playing better lately, but still show they can get rattled by defensive pressure.

The fourth quarter showed some better fight from the Kings on defense, but the offense was still far too slow. The Clippers stretched their lead to 10 points on a Wesley Johnson corner three.

And then Buddy Hield happened.

In the last 6:15 seconds of the game, Hield exploded for 16 points behind the kind of shotmaking Kings fans have been waiting to see from the second year lottery pick. He made threes off of screens, hustled for offensive boards, drove in for floaters, and punctuated the performance with a bonkers isolation pullup three over Griffin to tie the game at 95 with 15 seconds left. After Griffin’s clutch shot over Cauley-Stein, Buddy rushed a desperation heave with DeAndre Jordan on his hip, and that was the end of it.

At the end of the day, this wasn’t a discouraging performance from the Kings. We’ve seen the team clam up and die in the face of ratcheted pressure from their opponents often this year, and disastrous third quarter aside, they didn’t stop competing. Progress is still being made.

Observations:

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